Kickstart advice

Might have been a good idea to ask before wasting your money then asking what people think. There is no kickstart, you just start if you are ready to do it. The shakes aren't magic anymore than food is so what is the use? You are going to be more satisfied if you get to chew food not drink it.

you don't need to kickstart a diet... it gives you a psychological boost, but the physical cost of it outweighs any psychological benefit you can get, and there are other ways to give yourself a psychological boost. Plus, there are no actual long term fat loss benefits for it. You'll lose a bunch of water weight, and that's about it. And if you do that for 2 weeks then you could be losing muscle mass and bone density too, which is bad for your health and slows your metabolism, making further weight loss more difficult... not easier. So not really the kick start you're looking for....

Focus on the long term....... what do you want, to lose weight quickly, or to lose weight forever? 95% of diets fail in the long term and people gain the weight back again, or even more. Many women are stuck in a yo-yo diet cycle, i.e. losing weight, regaining it, losing weight, regaining it.... basically because they don't focus on the long term, so they lose it using methods that are unhealthy and unsustainable, and they can't stick to it for the rest of their lives, so they regain all the weight when they go back to eating normally.

If you want to lose weight forever and not gain it back again, you need to change your mindset to thinking of the long term. You basically need to find the maximum amount of food you can eat while still losing weight slowly and steadily, and it needs to be enough food for you to be able to enjoy all your favourite foods, just in smaller portion sizes. It should not be torturous or difficult to stick to, because you have to stick to it for the rest of your life. So the trick is to make it as easy as possible. For health reasons, do exercise that you enjoy and will find it easy to stick to. Set your calorie goal high enough to enjoy all your favourite foods (albeit in smaller portions) and focus on how to enjoy life while losing weight slowly and steadily, that way it becomes your lifestyle and you can sustain it for life, and lose weight and not regain it.

ways to get a psychological boost/kick start that will help in the long term:

- join a gym or exercise class and start attending

- do a boot camp to kick start your fitness levels (it may be a good idea to do this before you start eating at a deficit, to get the maximum fitness/strength benefit from it, then plan to continue regular exercise while eating at a sensible deficit)

- clean out your cupboards of unhealthy food and go on a healthy food that you like to eat shopping spree.... stick to foods that you like and will actually eat though!!

- write yourself a meal plan for healthy meals to stick within your healthy calorie goals and macronutrient ratios

- make posters of your favourite motivational quotes and stick them on your walls

- join a website where you can get points and "level up" from logging your workouts, and also log your workouts here to know how many calories to eat back to keep on fuelling your workouts